1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanical grippers, and, more particularly, to the jaw tooling for such grippers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Grippers are mechanical devices with one or more jaws that are moved toward and away from one another by an electric motor, fluid powered piston, or other motion. In many cases, tooling attached to the jaws of the gripper is responsible for transferring the force of the gripper to a workpiece such that the workpiece may then be held, moved, or rotated. This tooling may need to be able to grasp workpieces that differ from one another in size, shape, draft, material, mass, and more.
Typically, gripper jaw tooling is designed to match the contour of the workpiece; in this way, the tooling will mate with the workpiece when the gripper applies force to grasp the piece resulting in maximized force transmission to the part. Designing and manufacturing tooling to match workpieces of differing size, shape, draft, material, mass, etc. can prove not only costly, but far less effective at maximizing the grip force applied to the workpiece.
What is needed in the art is a gripper tooling assembly that can be used with maximum efficiency on workpieces of differing size, shape, draft, material, mass, etc.